Corny Philosophy
by J-Nynja
Summary: After the Cullens leave Forks, Jasper enrolls in University to study philosophy. He is soon confronted with a new experience that leads him to come to better terms with his life, his family and his thirst.One-shot, New Moon, Canon, slightly dark themes


**CORNY PHILOSOPHY**: TRUE LOGIC

College was empty without my brothers; today, it was just a lackluster cluster of old buildings and a surplus of intruding emotions, and I sorely missed the anticipation and pride that usually knotted in my chest whenever we walked through the doors of higher education together.

Memories of our former college days, and the sheer feeling of freedom from the torture that was high school, flitted by. I sighed, and a brief smile crossed my face. Edward always led the way, followed by Alice and I and then Rosalie and Emmet. It was the routine, a comfortable arrangement and a very present anomaly in my new situation. Sighing with regret at the turn of events that had brought us to this point, I wished again for a way to undo the days before this emptiness that had struck us. I pushed through the swiveling doors into the large, lit foyer of Cornell University's Sage School of Philosophy.

I quickly located the school secretary's office and sat on the flimsy metal chair at her request. Her office was cluttered with several cabinets pushed against three of the four walls and large plastic containers filled with files were piled up everywhere. On her desk sat a relatively new computer and a steaming cup of coffee placed beside a family picture showing three smiling faces. Again, faces from my family flashed by and the tight ache in my chest returned.

Just a few years ago, all three Cullen boys had been sitting on a bench underneath a large, willowing oak tree in Syracuse. We were smiling as we shared personal versions of other college memories while waited for the girls. Suddenly, Edward erupted into a short, tense chuckle, prompting Emmett to whip his head around, trying to locate the source of his sudden interest. He was soon disappointed.

Only Edward could read the mind of the self-conscious teenage woman across the field in the cheerleader's attire. Her curiosity was positively piqued as she stared at us, and a hint of lust rose in her aura but was quelled with fear when I narrowed my eyes at her. She quickly dashed away and I turned to raise my eyebrow in silent interrogation about the fleeting pain my now depressed brother felt. He had shrugged and said, "She was trying to imagine what my girlfriend looked like."

Before either of us could form a reply to that statement, he sprung to his feet and turned to walk away. Emmett must have understood in that moment that Edward needed to be alone and sighed in recognition. He shook his head slightly and rubbed the back of his neck, and I didn't need to be a mind reader to know his thoughts then. In his eyes, and probably in mine as well, the same unsaid words were spoken loud and clear.

If I could weep for my brother, I would have let the tears fall then. Alice and I had discussed this several nights ago, but who could really understand the stubborn, lonesome vampire. He clung to the firm resolve that his family held all the love he needed or deserved, but in moments like this I couldn't help but wonder if Esme's unbridled attention, Carlisle's pride, or even Alice's adoration could wholly meet his emotional needs.

As expected, when he returned that night, he brushed my concerns away with an invitation to partake in our favorite college hobby and effectively ended that conversation. As Alice, Rosalie, and Esme were engrossed in a women-only discussion about the expected requirements for our recently-acquired home in Alaska, my brothers and I quickly ran back to school and scaled the walls to sit on the roof opposite the hall where the latest human festivities were in full swing.

It was while we observed one such boisterous frat and keg parties that Emmett had conceived the famous 'bong theory.' His wide grin had been so infectious as he explained the concept that day that the absurdity of it all had ended up throwing a typically cautious Edward down from the Harvard Theological School's chapel steeple where we sat in the darkness, leaving a slight dent in the sidewalk beside it.

"See, the bong theory totally relates to you, brother," Emmett laughed raucously. "You just can't graduate without it," he had declared as we leapt from the narrow ledge to meet our brother at the other side of the chapel.

We had all developed an obsession for 'the bong' despite the fact that it was of no use to us. Of course, the women had not shared our interest, but ever since Emmett brought the ancient smoking pipe home and placed it beside Esme's antique Nefertiti Basque, Edward, Emmet, myself, and sometimes, even Carlisle, had taken to pausing at the vacant hearth where it stood to admire the wooden contraption and pay it homage of a sort.

In no time, Esme recognized our fixation and protested delicately but quite persuasively until the article was removed from the mantel in the living room and displayed upon the wide window sill in Carlisle's library.

I had been very amazed when the doctor decided he found the bong an interesting collector's item and took it up to his study. Even more amazed than Emmett and Edward had been, when they returned from school that day, to find it set on Carlisle's window sill of fame. The bong sat next to an aging photograph from his wedding day and his father's archaic Bible.

Later that night, as we sat high above and too far away from the drunken humans and loud bonfire, we had shared our shocked feelings about the new location of the bong with one another amidst sporadic bouts of laughter. After a period of silence, Emmett proposed the theory of the bong and then Edward had lost his balance, fallen off our secret perch with a loud bang, and set us off running back home in an even louder uproar of hilarity.

My brothers had espoused to me in every situation I had encountered since we first joined the Cullens a few decades ago, and had taken to engaging me on the eve of our first day of college with a boys' night out and a special vampire-style bear keg party. As part of their support, it had become a habit to walk through the doors of my chosen department together on the first day of school. Last night, however, I had hunted with Alice and Esme and only I had walked through the swinging glass doors of the Sage School of Philosophy to continue the human farce alone.

Keeping with the charade had taken a lot of effort to master in the early days. I would sit still for hours before Edward would remind me to fumble a little, and on those days when I was depressed with our arrangement, Emmett's strength and humor had been there to lift my spirit up with a surprise wrestling match or one of his trademark practical jokes.

I noted with a twinge of sadness the last time I had seen Emmett smile. His eyes shone that night with so much love for Edward's mate as she shyly thanked us all for her birthday gifts from her place in Edward's arms. The atmosphere had been memorable, filled with happiness and love before…

Shuddering slightly at the gory memory while crossing my ankles, I glanced up at the secretary to determine what had kept her and was a little surprised to find that she had built up quite a high level of frustration as I sat there wallowing and waiting for my class schedule. She seemed agitated with something, and I clenched my jaw at the inkling that it involved my new class schedule.

The heavyset secretary fumbled, frantically flipped through several papers and cursed softly behind her unresponsive computer. Nearly ten minutes had passed and still her efforts proved futile. Her skin shone with sweat and her face was flushed when she turned to face me with resignation. I crossed my arms across my chest, pursed my lips, cocked my head slightly, and held still as I waited for her to speak the words that were sure to further irritate me.

Already, my frustration had been skirting its threshold when I approached her desk to enquire about my schedule. Apparently, my timetable had been altered sometime prior without the necessary notification sent to me, and then my fury threatened to spill through my clenched jaw when the school secretary admitted that she had lost the new schedule. I yearned to wring her neck or scream, but alas, any of my plans would cause the woman her fatal end. Nodded in silent acceptance, I stood up to walk out of the claustrophobic enclosure. Before I could take a step though, a relatively younger looking woman walked in with a smile and offered her help.

To say that I was shocked was a gross understatement, and there were no words to describe the stunning effect this woman had on me. My eyes widened in horror, my jaw dropped, and my arms slackened to fall at my sides as I took in her brown eyes, dark brown hair, and pale skin. She smiled nervously and cleared her throat to alert me to the words she spoke, but I gaped like a dying fish at her striking resemblance to my brother's mate and faltered in my introduction.

Her appearance haunted me like a ghost, and every turn she took drove me deeper into an abyss of self regret. In my mind, I could see that hole again; that place I had not revisited that ever since Alice took my hand and led me away from the agony of pursuing the convicting satisfaction of human blood. This woman – Miss Reynolds – she had said, bound me and threw me back into that void with her innocent appearance.

"Yes, Mr. Hale has a class with me now," she confirmed, smiling up at me from the paper she had been inspecting from the secretary's desk and gestured to the door. "Shall we?"

The walk to the class had been brief after I had held the door open for her and nodded a curt but unwarranted thanks to the clearly relieved secretary. I soon determined my seat when we stepped through the large class and settled into my cocoon of nonchalance to wait out the hours of inane deliberation ahead of me.

Her soft voice rang clearly in the quiet classroom as she introduced herself again and asked us to do the same. I deliberately avoided her face and fixed my gaze on the replica of Edward's Aston Martin I had begun drawing when we settled down to begin the class. Scoffing silently, I pulled my half smile back into a mask of detachment when she mentioned logic as our topic for the day. In a matter of speaking, I had almost seen it all and, as usual, these humans hardly knew what they spoke about.

During my lifetime, several theories had been propounded to explain the mystery of the beginning and ending of life, but most people simply chalked it up to logic. Evolution, revolution, and destruction were all considered consequences of logic. Even more laughable, the progression of man's feeble brain and its retrogression was blamed on logic.

Mother Earth's status as the oasis of life set in the midst of a supposedly barren universe was said to have come about through logic and yet nothing seemed logical to me. So, the wise men's claims that facts of life, living, being, and dying all arrived from a methodical series of truths, annoyed me greatly. That logic they spoke about, had yet to meet my wife, my family, and my heartbroken brother.

Already, the premise from so-called wise men, that truth was truth if only it could be proved, denied our existence. As a vampire's reality could not be verified in any extent to the weak human mind, it stood logical then that we were deemed mythical creatures of darkness. Empirically, instinct alerted them to our presence and instilled a fear for the unknown within their hearts, but that was quickly dismissed by the human mind which found no indication of logic within the notion.

Yet, the simplicity of the unproven truth encapsulated in that occasional flight of the imagination almost recognized our true potential and, more accurately, our actuality. The logical world refuted the possibility of a mutual union between a predator and his prey, and in order to avoid taboo, my brother had walked away from his greatest happiness.

Granted, that to keep some sanity on both sides of the divide, we were required to keep our secret while they were left to their blissful ignorance. To ensure that both our species survived in the great equilibrium of nature, Bella had been dealt this undeniably rational decision forced on her to be pulled away from the man she had come to know as a lover – vampire as he was or not.

The word 'logic' was scratched across the board in front of the class, but it held no interest for me except for the fact that it did not apply to me. I sat quietly in the dark corner of the room, close to the window and far enough from the group of excited humans in the middle. Their hearts thudded faster and their spirits soared higher with the prospects that the woman perched at the edge of her desk presented them, while my silent heart broke and my regrets surged with every glance at the ridiculously young professor.

She held a far greater fascination for me than she could possibly assume and yet, whenever our eyes met, her heart thumped away and a sweat broke across her forehead and over her upper lip with a comical attempt at suppressing her lust. Even more unnerving, she unconsciously bit her bottom lip when she was deep in thought or mulled over a student's opinion, suggestion, or comment.

Her pretentious ease, as she stood before the class in her dark grey pantsuit, mocked my renewed anxiety with every glance I stole at her. She explained her topic for the day with a thoughtful smile spread across her lips and a twinkle in her eyes, but when her mouth moved, her words never reached me through the drone of the palpable excitement that saturated the room or the sheath of pain that surrounded me.

Most of the students laughed along and enjoyed the cheery absurdities, if one may call them so, that she presented. Her intriguing illustrations spanned several notions that were geared to challenge sharp minds to explain logic, and her intelligence really impressed me.

"What about vampires?" she asked unexpectedly.

My head shot up from the incomplete Aston Martin I had been drawing much too rapidly to be subtle about my sudden curiosity, drawing her attention to the sharp movement and her eyes fixed to mine. A fleeting silence fell over the class for the minute or so it took to understand her question. I held my breath and waited in alarm.

Ms. Reynolds smiled slowly and pushed her flecked, rimless glasses back up her nose. Her hands trembled slightly, but managed somehow to keep a calm façade. Under her external composure, I knew that her eyes were wide with inexplicable intrigue while her breathing sped partially with a hint of lust. For a moment I stared blankly into the face of the haunting reminder of my brother's human obsession before turning away to take in the beautiful red-brown Autumn trees. I sighed, as their color only reminded me of the shade of Edward's hair, and peeked at Miss Reynolds once more before returning to my failed masterpiece. Her delicate features looked much more mature than Edward's little human, but they were no less evocative of Bella's birthday.

"Mr. Hale?" My spine tensed as I slowly lifted my head to look again into familiar brown eyes. "What do you think, are there any logical philosophies to explain vampire existence?" she asked.

A snort of disbelief threatened to spill through, but I masked it perfectly with a deliberate frown. Philosophies abounded in my home. Carlisle's major philosophy was that there was a better life to be lived even after living for eternity, while Edward thought it was logical that we were all damned.

"There could be," I started in a flat tone, lowering my head to gaze at the unfinished drawing on my notepad in feigned concentration. I raised my eyes to stare at her through my lashes and nearly lost a battle to lift an eyebrow as well. As usual, her response was immediate and predictable: pounding heart, sweaty forehead, and even more evident desire than before.

Her struggles seemed greater than mine, though for what reason, I could not understand. Her unease with the perceptible teacher–student attraction amused me, though another more demure feeling drew me to the fact that her affections were not exactly geared towards me. Her face flushed beneath my stare and her pounding heart caused me a momentary scare with its cadence.

"I haven't come across any work that suggests the existence of vampires yet," I drawled lazily, "But there have been several instances of fictional rationality that have proven to be realism after all."

"As in the case of the flat world becoming round?" Her composure had been perfectly recouped, and she nodded in agreement, and gesturing toward a lanky man at the end of the row across the room.

"Yes, Mr. Kennedy, would you like to mention a few cases of fiction that have been proven as reality?" He launched into a long analysis on fictionalism and realism, and I turned to attend to my drawing.

The sketch was never completed, partly because I could hardly concentrate on it and also because I kept seeing Edward driving it. When he first brought his 'super chick' home, he had taken Alice on the first exhilarating ride and then driven Rosalie to L.A to shop for new clothes. They had returned discussing and arguing about tweaks for the 'baby.'

I had eyed them from the couch where I sat and read, only to have the keys thrown at me and a grinning Edward ask if I wanted to take her for a spin. Emmett conceded after a long argument that he could not fit into the car and allowed Esme to come along with me. Super chick's engine had purred with her power and a light tap on the gas pedal had sent her flying like a bird!

It was absolute freedom, no worries and no cares as we peeled over the freeway that led to nowhere. My mother had laughed at the sheer audacity of the machine and called her a "fiery little thing". Esme's pleasure had been overwhelming in those few hours, and I promised myself to take her on another ride soon just to see her laugh like that again.

That laugh had slowly faded as the weight of Edward's absence bore down like a substantial cloud over our home. My mother mourned daily as though she had lost another son to death, and my wife was so aggrieved by her separation from her favorite sibling for such a long spell of time that it was nearly impossible not to feel horridly responsible for my family's distress.

Carlisle insisted it was only for a few more years. "A couple of years from now, we can be together again," he'd said, but Esme conversely disagreed, citing that fate had already thrown the vampire and his human into an unending whirl of love and would not be satisfied until it had its way.

"It was fate that brought you to the morgue that day, my love. Why do you so insist on feeding your son's misconceptions?"

"My son is a man," the obviously torn patriarch had replied simply in a quiet voice. "He can make his own decisions."

That was the first time I had ever seen Esme huff at her husband and walk away from the dinner table with a pout. Her pain exceeded any other person's pain except for Edward's, and it was evident that she desperately yearned for a solution to this mishap. The thought that her eldest son lacked the completion we had all found irritated her, and that his father was in cahoots with said son strengthened her frustration further.

Later that day, I sat behind a pile of new books at the philosophy library where I worked as an assistant in accordance with the school's academic requirements for graduate students. I slowly labeled some of its new acquisitions when I heard Ms. Reynolds's barely hushed voice behind the shelf where the reference books were kept. Her tone was agitated, and when I focused harder, her irritation and frustration hit me instantly. She was sobbing and her voice was muffled with the strength of her sorrow.

"It can't be, please, Nicholas," her voice shook, as her pain took over and overwhelmed us both. I yearned to calm and soothe her worry, but I knew better than to use my gift in a matter that did not concern me. Even so, I couldn't help but wonder about Bella with her wide eyes filled with tears and her fragile heart breaking on every sob.

"It can't be," she insisted. "I am still your teacher, plea –."

Her voice muffled further on a small moan, and then a slight whimper tore through. I heard a male voice murmuring and decided it was time to see for myself what was causing the double dose of anxiety. When I was close enough to be undetected by the sobbing couple at the far end of the library partially concealed by dusty old books, I watched as the tall blonde man cradled the Bella-like beauty to himself.

He whispered into her hair to calm her down, "We'll find a way, we have to. I could quit or transfer from Cornell. Maybe I'll get into Princeton and then we can be together."

"No, Nic, I am still your teacher and twelve years older than you. It's impossible!"

Nic's arms tightened and hope arose from his earlier depression as she clung to him in silent dejection. The scene filled me with sorrow for the two humans plunged into another one of the world's irrational rationality and I left them there none the wiser about my intrusion.

Back at my seat, I thought about my brother and his shaky steps as he reached home that fateful day and fell into pile of sorrow in Esme's arms. Alice had reassured me several times before that his decision to leave Bella was inevitable and entirely his choice, and yet the guilt had not ebbed entirely since then.

As soon as my designated hours at the library were over, I dashed out to meet my giggling wife at the doorstep of our home. I sat on the step and drew her slender body to mine, absorbing her strength and silently saying an eternally grateful prayer to the oracle that had afforded me the beauty and grace that snuggled into my chest. I held her tighter, and she chuckled lightly at the gesture. Of course, she knew it would be like this and had probably decided to wait here for me. I let the day's troubles pour from me with her reassuring presence, and then later, when I led her to our bedroom, showed her again just how thankful I was for her love.

Nearly two hours passed and we still lay on the white silk sheets on our bed. A car drew forward from the distance and parked in the driveway, but before I could look out the window, Alice hurriedly dressed up and flew past me to launch herself into her long lost brother's arms. Edward laughed heartily, setting her down gently and kissing her cheeks. He laughed again and finally turned to look up at me with a wide grin. His happiness was genuine for that brief moment and yet, his eyes were tainted with pain and a swiftly-wavering resolve.

I clasped his hand in a firm greeting and patted his back, unable to decide whether to show my support for his grave decision to forego his happiness or simply greet the brother I had been missing for so long. He nodded as he smiled, and I was washed in his understanding and amusement for another precious second before his anxiety took over again. He asked for Esme, caught the answer for his unspoken question about Carlisle's whereabouts in my head, and hugged Alice once more.

As he drove out of sight to meet Esme at the house she was working to restore, I couldn't help but wonder. If there ever was such a thing as true logic, it would be found in a place where every man deserved to love and be loved regardless of the logical or illogical assertion of the situation. Edward deserved his own logic, a series of truths that ended in his happiness. Bella was that logic and yet his own self-deprecating beliefs had led him to insist on the logic of the world.

Alice moaned in pity at his retreating form, and I mirrored her emotion with a nod of consensus.

"Bella loves him so much and he's killing himself just to deny that truth. She is his other half, you know?" she whispered.

My lips lifted into a smile at her mention of truth and when I whispered back, "He has to find that truth for himself, Love, otherwise he may not understand his own completion," I knew just as much of this philosophy applied to us all.

Carlisle had lived for more than 250 years before he found that truth and yet Rosalie had found it in less than two years. Alice had sought the truth for 30 years and it had taken me mere minutes to submit to its power. Edward had to find his own truth.

Right then, I understood what my philosophy for this life was. That a man, no matter whom and no matter what situation he found himself in, could only be truly happy if his own truth made perfect sense to him. Corny as it sounded, this epiphany had become my new philosophy.

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Red – Fight Inside (Innocence & Instinct)

Eowyn – Helpless (Identity)

High Flight Society - Come on, Sister (Par Avion EP)

_**I hope you enjoyed it**_


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